“Meanwhile
Gotarzes, who repented of having relinquished his throne, at the
solicitation of the nobility, to whom subjection is a special hardship in peace, collected a force. Vardanes marched against him to the
river Charinda; a fierce battle was fought over the passage,
Vardanes winning a complete victory, and in a series of
successful engagements subduing the intermediate tribes as far
as the river Sindes, which is the boundary between the Dahae and
the Arians. There his successes terminated. The Parthians, victorious though
they were, rebelled against distant service. So after erecting monuments on
which he recorded his greatness, and the tribute won from peoples from whom no
Arsacid had won it before, he returned covered with glory, and therefore the
more haughty and more intolerable to his subjects than ever. They arranged a
plot, and slew him when he was off his guard and intent upon the
chase.”
Tacitus
(109 CE),
Book XI.

By 58
CE
Hyrcania had regained its independence from the Parthians and sent an embassy to
Rome:

“The [Roman]
success [in Armenia] was the easier, as the Parthians were distracted by a war
with the Hyrcanians, who had sent to the Roman emperor, imploring alliance, and
pointing to the fact that they were detaining Vologeses as a pledge of amity.
When these envoys were on their way home, Corbulo [the Roman general], to save
them from being intercepted by the enemy’s picquets after their passage of the
Euphrates, gave them an escort, and conducted them to the shores of the Red Sea
[in 59 CE], whence,
avoiding Parthian territory, they returned to their native possessions.”
Tacitus
(109 CE),
XIV.

This
interesting passage indicates that the Hyrcanian envoys almost certainly
travelled home via India and, thus, through Kushan territory, suggesting
probable communications between the Romans and Kushans.It seems likely that this was all part of a concerted attempt by both the
Kushans and the Romans to open up an alternative trade route, which avoided the
high taxes imposed by the Parthians on caravans travelling through their
territory. Joe Cribb suggests an approximate date for Kujula’s reign of 30-80
CE–
see Sims-Williams and Cribb (1995/6), pp. 105-107. Fussman, on the other hand,
suggests that he died c. 45-50, but perhaps as late as 60 CE
– see Fussman (1998), p. 638.As this debate remains unresolved and, as I have little more to add to
it, I suggest the interested reader check all the articles mentioned by
Sims-Williams, Cribb and Fussman in which will be found a wealth of fascinating
new information on the Kushans flowing from the fairly recent discovery of the
important Bactrian inscription from Rabatak in Afghanistan.There is also the text of a lecture given by Professor Sims-Williams in
1997 in Tokyo available on the Web describing this exciting new discovery and
its many implications. Numerous interesting photographs accompany the notes. The
lecture, entitled: “New Findings in Ancient Afghanistan – the Bactrian documents
discovered from the Northern Hindu-Kush” may be accessed on: http://www.gengo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~hkum/bactrian.html
Also, see Appendix 4: More Clues in the Dating of the Great Kushan
Kings, and note
13.13 below.